Tuesday, June 11, 2013

"So, Are You Ever Going To Have A Baby?"

This is sort of a follow up post to the "You're going to have your own kids, right?" post yesterday. It's kind of a different variation of the same question, but one that we get asked sometimes nonetheless. As I said yesterday, we are happy to field questions, especially if someone is really trying to understand our heart for this journey into foster care and adoption.

So, are we ever going to have a baby?

No clue.

Honestly, we have no idea. If we do, it will either be because of a happy surprise or because we get to a point in our life when God says "ok, now thou shalt have a baby." So, who knows? Not us, that's for sure.

But for now, here are some of the reasons why we are not having a baby right now and instead are pursuing foster care and adoption as our first step towards parenthood:

1. Who says a couple has to have a biological child first, or at all? Societal norms? Eh, y'all know Trent and I aren't that into blindly following societal norms.

2. Foster care and any form of adoption require that so much time, effort and attention be given to that child or those children who have just been plopped into your home with little or no context, history or knowledge of each other. If we already had a biological child and then took on foster care, we could either end up in a situation where we weren't able to give enough attention to the foster children who desperately need it, or a situation where we were focusing so much on the foster kids' needs that our biological child was then not receiving enough of the parental attention. By choosing foster care first, we can focus entirely on the children that come into our home.

3. Whether we give birth to a baby after nine months or have a foster child placed in our home after a few hours' notice, Trent and I would still have to learn how to parent from scratch. So why not learn about birth parent visits and court dates from scratch along with potty training, nap schedules and tripping over toys?

4. We feel personally called as a couple to pursue foster care and adoption and are intent on following through and obeying that call. If God says go, we'll go. If He says do, we'll do. This isn't about us. With that said, the "are we ever going to have a baby" question...doesn't really matter.